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Onslaught
First full appearance of Onslaught in X-Men #53 (vol. 2, June 1996). Art by Andy Kubert
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	X-Man #15 (1996)
Created by	Scott Lobdell Mark Waid Andy Kubert
In story information
Team affiliations	Dark Descendants
Notable aliases	Charles Xavier
Abilities	Superhuman strength and durability Telepathy Telekinesis Magnetism manipulation Reality warping

Onslaught is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in X-Man #15 (May, 1996), and was created by writers Scott Lobdell and Mark Waid, and artist Andy Kubert.

[edit] Publication history

At the conclusion of the "Fatal Attractions" storyline in X-Men #25, Magneto rips the adamantium from Wolverine's skeleton, causing a furious Professor Xavier to telepathically shut down Magneto's mind, absorbing Magneto's dark ego; the negative emotions, merged with Xavier's suppressed urges, form a powerful, dormant psionic entity - the self-dubbed Onslaught.

The character of Onslaught is first alluded when a shadowy figure with Onslaught's distinctive word-balloon coloring and design is seen speaking with a frightened Mystique in X-Men: Prime #1. Onslaught is first mentioned in Uncanny X-Men #322, when the Juggernaut crash-lands in Hoboken, New Jersey, having been hit hard enough by Onslaught to send him across the country. Onslaught makes his first full appearance in X-Men #53, where the character communicates with Jean Grey on the Astral Plane. In X-Men #54, Onslaught imprisons Juggernaut within the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak and defeats the X-Men in Onslaught: X-Men. Onslaught intends to destroy all mutants and humans, and kidnaps Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four #415 (August) and Nate Grey in X-Man #19 (September), using their psionic powers to greatly increase his own, and changes his physical form. Onslaught fights the Avengers, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, and the X-Men. The Hulk is able to destroy Onslaught's psi-armor. However, Onslaught is now a being of pure psionic energy. Many of the non-mutant heroes (along with the mutant Scarlet Witch) and Bruce Banner (physically separated from the Hulk) sacrifice their lives to disrupt Onslaught's form from within, and weakening it, allowing the X-Men to destroy Onslaught. ^[1]

Thanks to the limitless powers of Franklin Richards, the heroes did not die; instead, they are reborn in a pocket dimension (Heroes Reborn). In this pocket dimension, during a chaotic event involving the impending detonation of the gamma power core of the Avengers headquarters, Onslaught himself briefly appeared as a non-corporeal being.

With the departure of Rob Liefeld and Jeph Loeb from the Avengers title, the storylines were never adequately wrapped up; however, in late 2006, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Onslaught event, a five-issue mini-series, Onslaught Reborn, by Loeb and Liefeld, saw the villain return and explored these dangling plot threads. Set after Decimation but before Civil War, it sees the mutant energy from the depowered mutants reforming Onslaught.^[2] The series, Onslaught Reborn, ends with the villain floating in the Negative Zone. ^[3]

[edit] In other media

Onslaught appears in the video games Marvel vs. Capcom and Jin Saotome. There have been several Onslaught figures released throughout the years; a helmeted version was released in the late 1990s, and in 2006, Onslaught's second, monstrous form was used as the Build-A-Figure for Marvel Legends Series 13.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The official Marvel Universe article on Onslaught